


Sliced From Life: Cut Scenes

by AVegetarianCannibal



Series: Slice of Life [14]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Argentina, Caretaking, Dorks in Love, Flashbacks, M/M, Mexico, Missing Scene, Misunderstandings, Murder Husbands, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-27 15:36:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20950781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AVegetarianCannibal/pseuds/AVegetarianCannibal
Summary: Ever wonder if there was something missing from the story you've already read?





	Sliced From Life: Cut Scenes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shukkhy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shukkhy/gifts).

> If you've been reading the Slice of Life series, then you know it's grown quite a bit from its original standalone chapter. But even as big as the story has gotten, there wasn't always room for every scene I or my benefactor wished to include. So here are a few scenes and vignettes that fit in somewhere along the way, where Hannibal and Will try to navigate their new life together.

**Old and New Scars**

  
(Time frame: A couple of days after they set sail together, after Will has had the sex dream about the Wendigo and admitted to himself how he feels about Hannibal. Hannibal has no idea.)

*

They sit on the berth's minuscule mattress together, with Hannibal in front of him and nearly in his lap, because it's the only place to sit in the small, overstuffed boat. Hannibal has his shirt off, baring his back where the Dragon's bullet pierced it. Will pulls back the tape and gauze to clean the wound.

"How do I look?" Hannibal asks.

"Beautiful," Will says before he can stop himself. "It's... it's healing beautifully already."

"You might not be as optimistic about the view from the front," Hannibal says.

He washes the area around the wound with soap and water, then carefully rebandages it. He takes his time. He traces the outline of all the assorted bruises, not quite letting his hand touch the skin. Eventually, he makes his way down to the Verger brand.

His fingers curl into a fist. "I actually got a little amusement out of hearing you'd been branded, you know. But looking at it now... I think about Mason wanting to own you. I wish he could die a second time."

"It's certainly not my favorite scar," Hannibal admits, "although I've grown accustomed to it."

Will's anger only flares hotter. That Hannibal should ever have become accustomed to something so crude... something marking him as belonging to someone else... "We should... you should try to get rid of it," Will says. "Someone might recognize it if you went around shirtless, like at the beach."

Why did he have to evoke the mental image of Hannibal going topless at the beach? Fuck! Now he can't stop picturing the way the sun would glint off his shoulders and highlight the curve of his back...

"Are you proposing we carve the thing out of my skin?" Hannibal asks. "You owe me a scar or two, but would you settle for tattooing over it? I'll let you choose the design—revenge or resolve."

Will snorts. At least now he has a new mental image to replace the one of Hannibal as a half naked sun god. "Barbed wire and roses all the way across your lower back," he suggests. "Butterflies and skulls and a misspelled proclamation about life's regrets."

"A tramp stamp?" Hannibal asks. "Never did care for that phrase but I'll accept the ink if you truly want it. Perhaps I'll accompany it with a lace G-string and buttocks-baring shorts. That would go with such a tattoo, wouldn't it?"

"Oh yes," Will says. Fuck. "I mean, no. I don't need to give you scars or a bad tattoo. I pulled you off a cliff."

"You kept me company on the way down," Hannibal reminds him.

Will doesn't know what to say to that, and the muscles in his cheek are starting to throb again as the strong painkillers continue to wear off. It's as good an excuse as any to try to keep his mouth shut before he can say the wrong thing. Or the right thing, at the wrong time.

He taps Hannibal's shoulder, gesturing for him to turn around.

"Are you in pain?" Hannibal asks as he readjusts his position so that they're facing. Will makes an affirmative sound, but pulls back when Hannibal reaches for his face. He shakes his head. Hannibal translates his wordless expressions well enough. "Fine. Let's finish my dressings first."

Will winces when he unveils the exit wound. The skin around the drainage tubes is a deep, angry red.

"I shall need to adjust my antibiotics," Hannibal says, looking down. "I can smell the infection, though it is relatively minor. All things considered, it isn't as bad as it could've been."

Will smirks and dips a wad of gauze into warm, soapy water. He's careful when he cleans all around the sutures and chastises himself a little. To be so delicate with Hannibal is admittedly ridiculous, but he doesn't have it in him to be anything but perfectly tender with his patient. He's never hated Hannibal, even when he wanted to, but oh he's been searingly angry with him. He can't feel any vestige of that anger now but he tries not to poke at it too much. In the middle of the ocean, after he's decided to share his life with Hannibal, what good would it do?

"Will?"

He snaps back to attention when he hears Hannibal's voice. At nearly the same instant, he realizes he's strayed from washing the wound and is now circling Hannibal's nipple with the soapy gauze.

"Sorry," he mumbles, and hurries to rinse out the gauze.

Hannibal takes it from him. "I can finish up. You're still exhausted from the storm."

"Or from my raunchy sex dreams about you," Will does not say. Instead he murmurs something that sounds vaguely like "yeah that must be it."

"I'll do you when I'm done," Hannibal says.

Will moans from more than one cause of agony.

* * *

**Misunderstanding**

  
(Time frame: A week or so after Hannibal nearly turns himself back in to the FBI when he misunderstands Will's intentions. They're in Mexico now and Hannibal still has no idea that Will is sexually attracted to him.)

*

Will does not keep a journal, exactly, but every once in a rare while he jots things down on a page in his memory.

_Why can't he just look at me and see in my eyes what I want? Why can't he read me the way he did the night we killed Francis together? All we had to do was look at one another. We spoke wordlessly. We moved as one. It was perfection. My want feels as blatant as a waved flag: "I surrender! Take me!" But he either remains blind or is unwilling to act. I thought everything would be easier, as if by magic, once we ran away together._

He thinks things over for a minute and then adds one more thing.

_God I'm so fucking horny for that gray-haired cannibal freak. I'd ride him backwards, forwards, and upside down until his balls ran dry. I have no idea how long that would take but I'm willing to run tests to find out._

The image his mind comes up with brings a hot flush to his cheeks. Luckily they're strolling through the outdoor market in Izamal on an 80-degree day so he can blame it on the climate.

When he glances over at Hannibal, he finds himself being looked over with an oddly wistful expression. Hannibal quickly blinks it away and replaces it with a smile. The way his eyes crinkle at the corners makes Will's heart at least as full as the front of his underpants.

"Remind me I wish to discuss something with you," Hannibal says, leaning into him.

Will swallows hard. "Why not now?"

Hannibal lowers his voice to a husky whisper. "It's something best discussed in private." He adds a wink and Will nearly falls over.

_DEAR DIARY TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT I REPEAT TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT I'M GOING TO BE SO SORE AND EXHAUSTED TOMORROW AND I COULDN'T BE MORE FUCKING THRILLED ABOUT IT HOLY SHIT IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN._

Will struggles to project an iota of calm. "Sure thing. We'll talk later. More than once, I hope."

***

They have a quick dinner in the hotel restaurant, but Will excuses himself early to run up to the room.

He locks himself in the bath and considers his options: Should he grab a speedy shower or would Hannibal find the smell of his sweat more alluring than soap? He's made no secret of how he feels about Will's aftershave, but what about his body odor? Some people find that sexy, right? And Hannibal _is_ a sensualist...

After a few moments' consideration Will decides to just wipe down the rankest bits of himself with a wet washcloth, paying special attention to the state of his asshole. He figures it doesn't need to gleam like polished marble but it seems rude to invite someone to a party only to put out a dirty welcome mat.

_You're going to have a cannibal's mouth on your ass and dick and who knows what else. You've lost your mind. Even if he weren't a cannibal, his teeth are so sharp. SO SHARP._

"Quit trying to talk yourself out of it," he says to himself. Consummating their relationship like this is just the natural next step, isn't it? It's not a big deal. They already consummated it in a such a profound and transcendent way when they hunted the Dragon. He shouldn't be making it into a big deal. He groans. "I'd be able to think more clearly if I weren't so fucking hard!"

His phone dings out a notification.

He fishes it out of his pocket and sees the text from Hannibal.

[Is it safe to come up?]

Will frowns and shoots him a text back. [What do you mean?]

[Never mind,] comes Hannibal's reply. [That's what I wanted to talk to you about.]

Then there's a fucking winking face emoji. From Hannibal Lecter. A winking... face... _emoji_.

A few minutes later, the card reader on the door engages with a click and Hannibal walks in. Will's arms and legs suddenly feel alien to him; he doesn't know how to position them while he stands in the middle of the room. Maybe he should have thrown himself half-naked across the bed before Hannibal walked in.

"I don't wish to cause you any awkward feelings," Hannibal says, skipping over any greeting, "but I've noticed your persistent erections as of late."

Joining his arms and legs, Will's dick suddenly also feels alien. "W-what?" He's overly aware of how much it's pressing against the crotch of his trousers, and how his left ball has pushed slightly outside the leg opening of his bikini briefs, pinching his pubic hair. Why in the hell did he switch to bikinis??

Hannibal isn't quite looking at him in the eyes. Or the penis, for that matter.

"I realize you may be reluctant to relieve your tensions," Hannibal goes on, "as our quarters have typically been cramped."

"What?" Will hears his own voice as if from some distance. His pulse is throbbing in his ears, but also still, maddeningly, in his cock. "What?!"

Hannibal finally glances up at him. "If you ever need time alone to masturbate, please by all means take it. We can begin to occupy separate rooms now while we're ashore. I shall miss your company, but I realize it's an... adjustment... for a man in your position... to go without sexual release for so long."

There's more than a note of bitterness in Hannibal's voice even as he obviously tries to quell it.

_Dear Diary. Tonight Hannibal revealed that he has the entirely wrong idea about why I've been so horny since the night we set sail. How... how does this otherwise brilliant man not see what's directly in front of him? Namely my rock hard dick which is all but pointing at him like a divining rod through my pants._

"I don't wish to bring up your marriage—"

Will cuts him off. "Yeah. Don't." There's too much messiness there and Will's already left his past in the past. He doesn't know how to get from that to the hotel room in which they are currently standing, facing each other with still a gulf of misunderstanding between them.

Will sighs. "You don't need to get us separate rooms. It's... safer if we stick together."

_I don't think I'd be able to fall asleep now without him nearby._

"But what about...?" Hannibal trails off and makes a small stroking motion with his hand, letting the gesture speak for him.

Will closes his eyes. Agony. Pure agony. It's all too easy to imagine Hannibal's hand on him.

"I won't die of a hard-on," Will says.

"It may provide you some relaxation to reach orgasm," Hannibal says.

Fuck. Even just the word sounds like an act of foreplay in Hannibal's mouth. Will takes a slow, calming breath. It's only been a few days since Hannibal almost threw himself at the FBI because he thought Will had left for good. Maybe he needs more time before he can believe they're together now.

_In the meantime, I'll try to encourage him. Show him somehow that I'm ready for whatever he wants... let him know he can trust me. There are no more bluffs, no more oceanic dives, no more surrendering to the authorities. It's just us now. I'm here for him just as he's here with me... no more than an arm's length away... close enough that I can smell the summer night clinging to his hair and see how the peppers from dinner have made his upper lip especially red and juicy and so kissable looking..._

_Fuck!_

"I'll be in the bathroom," he says, all but stomping across the room in his urgency.

"To masturbate?" Hannibal calls after him.

"Yes! Fine!" Despairing, he lets his head loll forward in acceptance of defeat. "I'll be in there to... _that!_"

* * *

**Bad Tango**

  
(Time frame: They got their misunderstandings worked out in Cuba and have been banging on the regular. Now they've arrived in Argentina. They haven't adopted their dog yet.)

*

"Teach me the tango," Will says.

Hannibal is gleaming with sweat, wearing a tissue-thin undershirt and the trousers from a suit whose waistcoat and jacket were tossed aside earlier in the day. His face is flushed and he keeps running his fingers through his hair to keep it off his brow. He already looks like he's been dancing all night, even though the cause for the heat is actually a busted air conditioning unit in their apartment.

"You won't be a good student," Hannibal says. He goes about in bare feet trying to arrange several fans to maximize the air flow.

Will gapes at him. "What! I've always been a straight-A student! Well, As and Bs. A few Cs. All As in the classes I liked, anyway."

Hannibal ignores him and surveys the crumbling plaster walls. "Perhaps coming to Buenos Aires during the Corso was not the best idea that's ever crossed my mind."

"We've stayed in worse places," Will says. He taps his fingers over the wall and a flake of old paint the size of a Dorito falls to the floor. He sighs. "If we weren't trying to keep a low profile, we could just kill someone in a nice hotel and take their room."

"AirBnB will be hearing from me about this dishonest host," Hannibal says.

"We can kill them, too," Will says. "Later, I mean. For now, let's tango."

Hannibal abandons the fans and levels a long, considering look at Will. He raises up the hem of his undershirt and uses it to wipe the sweat off his upper lip. Will can almost feel the sensation on his own lip and reflexively licks the corresponding spot.

"I'll teach you," Hannibal finally says. He fixes Will with an intense stare. "You must do everything I say."

Will just nods because if he opens his mouth to speak he's pretty sure the words that come out will be "yes, sir" or maybe just "mmmmm."

He realizes Hannibal was right. He is going to be a bad student. He's going to be so distracted by his instructor that he won't do the steps properly. They haven't even started the lesson yet and he's already picturing Hannibal commanding him to do all sorts of things while he pretends to resist just so he can be told again.

Well, there's only one thing to be done about that.

He's going to have to make sure that Hannibal is worse at teaching than he himself is at learning. It will require subtlety of the finest sort...

"Hold on. I'm sweating bullets here." He pulls his shirttails out of the waistband of his chinos and ties the front in a knot just below his sternum. If he were wearing heels, he'd be halfway to looking like a pretty decent World War II pinup model. "What now?"

"I'll lead," Hannibal says, not even looking at his bared belly. "You're the follower. Stand like this."

He demonstrates the proper posture, which Will then imitates with just one a slight difference. "Like this?"

"Will," Hannibal sighs. "Are you sucking in your stomach so that your trousers slip low enough to expose the start of your pubic hair?"

"It's called a treasure trail," Will says. "Wanna see how far down it goes?"

"I'm already very familiar with your treasures," Hannibal says. "I'm simply concerned about your ability to maintain a good frame. Now, your left upper arm will be on my forearm..."

He then proceeds to rattle off a long list of body parts and placement that sounds more like a dry reading from an anatomy class than anything that will lead to one of the—if not THE sexiest—dances that's ever existed. Alternatively, given a floor mat with colorful circles, it could also be a set of instructions for a game of Twister.

Will just lets it all wash over him the best he can, but his concentration isn't exactly helped by the proximity of Hannibal's body. Things get worse when Hannibal uses his hands to properly position Will's hips. The temperature in the room jumps ten degrees.

"You're sweating profusely," Hannibal observes.

"Well, so are you," Will snaps back. He's not even mad at Hannibal, really, but his goals are already getting away from him. "It's just fucking tropical in here."

He takes half a step back and unties his shirt before peeling out of it completely.

"Is that better?" Hannibal asks, gaze straying downward until he's eyeing Will's nipples.

Will juts his chest out a little. "You tell me."

"You could dance nude as far as I'm concerned," Hannibal says, "although that's not perfectly traditional for the formal tango. Now, let's begin."

He tries to follow where Hannibal leads, but instead keeps bumping into him. He even steps on Hannibal's feet several times as if he's a teenager at his first school dance! His hips, offset from Hannibal's as the dance requires, feel no sexier than a pan of bread dough. He curses under his breath.

"You're trying to lead," Hannibal says.

"It feels... inequitable," Will sighs.

"It's true that the follower has the more complex and more difficult part," Hannibal says.

Will disentangles himself from Hannibal. "Then why teach me this part when I don't know anything? Wouldn't it make more sense to let me have the easier part?"

Hannibal takes his arms and repositions them. "By learning to follow, you're also learning to lead," he says. "I also assumed that, with your piercing empathy, you would read and anticipate my body's movements better."

Will closes his eyes for a moment and swipes away all the distractions in the room. The shaky fans vanish... the sweltering, suffocating air dissipates... the noise from the street below fades away. Only Hannibal remains, holding him with their bodies touching, but not aligned. The position doesn't afford them eye contact, but they don't need it. Not really. He can feel every slight twitch in Hannibal's muscles, every change in pressure from his fingertips and nudge from his hip like a clear signal telling him where they need to go. They begin to dance.

And—

He's still not very good at it.

But he's ever so _slightly_ better, which relaxes him just enough to get back to the business of seducing his tango instructor...

* * *

**Trained**

(Time frame: They've just adopted Cephi from Adriana, the woman who owns a Merino sheep farm and runs a dog rescue on the side.)

*

"Sit."

A few seconds pass.

"_Sit_, little one."

A few more seconds.

"Perhaps a spoon of peanut butter would inspire you?"

Will, fashioning a new fishing lure in the living room, has been listening to Hannibal's efforts to teach the dog some commands for the better part of the morning.

"Are you sure you don't want me to help?" Will calls out. "I've got more than a little experience with training dogs, you know!"

Hannibal's exasperated huff is audible even a room away. "If I can train human beings to believe anything I want, I'm certain I can train a dog! Even if they are ridiculously adorable and almost monstrously stubborn." His voice very nearly devolves into babytalk towards the end.

"Dogs aren't humans," Will says. "I think that should be obvious even to retired psychiatrists."

There's a pause and then Hannibal appears in the doorway between the living room and kitchen. "I never retired from psychiatry," he says. "I was incarcerated—voluntarily."

Will ties a bit of penguin feather to his lure. "Apologies," he says. "Please, continue training the dog, Dr. Lecter."

Hannibal flares his nostrils with a touch of drama and heads back into the kitchen.

A minute later, Cephi streaks through the living room with a spoon in her mouth and disappears up the stairs. Hannibal is hot on her trail, although he loses a bit of ground because he slides on the floor in his sockfeet. The toasty aroma of homemade peanut butter follows them both, scenting the air with an explanation as to what happened.

Will tilts his head back towards the stairs. "Don't let her swallow the spoon, Doctor!"

***

The next morning, Hannibal's expression looks like a thunderstorm. Troubled and dark, ready to burst with pent-up energy. Or frustration, such as the case may be.

"What's wrong?" Will asks, knowing exactly what's wrong.

"I have perhaps overestimated my ability to train Cephi," Hannibal says, scowling into his coffee cup instead of looking at Will. Will doesn't say anything. "Are you going to make me ask?"

Will blinks, all innocence. "Ask what?"

"For your help," Hannibal says. He looks over at Cephi, who is currently digging through the kitchen trash bin. "I need your help with our dog. _Please_."

Will makes a sharp sound of disapproval, catching Cephi's attention. She immediately stops what she's doing, dips her head low, and looks up at him with big puppydog eyes.

"Oh look how contrite she is," Hannibal says.

"She's not sorry she got into the trash," Will says, holding up a hand when Hannibal gets up to go to her. "She's performing an expression of submissiveness to get back in my good graces. If I hold out my fingers she'll come over and lick them."

He does so, and she responds just as he predicted she would.

As soon as she's done licking his hand, she turns around and makes for the trash bin once more.

Will makes a disapproving sound again, this time louder. "Enh-enh!" She lies down on her side and picks up her right front paw to expose her neck and chest. "She's acting like a puppy would if its mother dog had expressed displeasure. She doesn't know why, yet, but a few more times of catching her in the act of trying to dig in the trash and she'll know it displeases us."

"But she's not sorry, per se," Hannibal says.

"She wants us to be happy with her," Will says. "Which is the equivalent for a dog, I guess. I know you think I'm saying she's being deceptive, as offended as you look, but I'm saying dogs have a different—_not_ lesser—psychology than humans do. We have to see through the dog's eyes."

Hannibal still looks offended, but less and less as the seconds pass and he mulls over what he's learned.

***

"Dogs are literal-minded," Will explains at their next training session. "No matter how literal you think you're being when you try to see the lesson through her eyes, peel back another layer. And another. Dogs subscribe to Occam's Razor, even to a fault."

"The simplest explanation is the most likely," Hannibal says.

"No matter how ridiculous it seems to us," Will says. "When I was a teenager, I had a dog who believed Patrick Stewart either caused or portended hurricanes because we were watching _Star_ _Trek_ when one blew through. For weeks after that she'd bark every time she saw him on TV."

A small light of epiphany seems to come on for Hannibal. "Undoubtedly she then thought her barking was what kept further hurricanes away. It's like..."

"A superstition," Will says. "Dogs are superstitious, in a way."

Hannibal nods with all seriousness and dips a small piece of raw carrot in peanut butter. Cephi hops around, tongue hanging out of her mouth as she makes breathy, excited little barks.

"Say her name to get her attention," Will says.

"Cephi!"

"Not like that," Will says. "Never use her name in a scolding tone. Well, try not to. We all slip up sometimes."

"Cephi," Hannibal says again. She blinks up at him and slows her frantic jumping to a gentle tap dance of sorts. "Sit."

"She doesn't know English," Will says. "Or any human language, for that matter. We have to assign meaning to it for her."

Hannibal reaches down to touch her rump. "Sit." He straightens up before Will can correct him. "She will assume that my touching her is part of the command. That would be her literal understanding of it, correct?"

"Correct," Will says. "Sometimes training is at least as much about teaching the muscles as the mind. If you move the treat from front to back over her head, her butt will automatically drop to the ground as she lifts her chin. The instant she makes contact, tell her to sit." 

Hannibal does as he's been instructed, and so does Cephi. Hannibal's face lights up like dawn and he gives her the carrot treat she's earned.

Then he frowns slightly. "Won't she come to expect a treat every time?"

"You'll vary the rewards from treats to praise," Will says. "That's where muscle memory comes in. Even if she _thinks_ she should be getting a bite of peanut butter, her butt will still drop to the ground."

Hannibal peers into the peanut butter jar. "I should make more, though, just in case."

***

By the end of a week, Hannibal has become a much better dog trainer and reader of canine body language. He knows there are as many variations of tail-wagging as there are expressions on a human face. He's taught Cephi all the basic commands she needs to know for her own safety. She can sit and heel fairly reliably, although it's clear she obeys the latter simply because she _likes_ being at Hannibal's side. She's also very good at lying down and staying in place unless she smells sausages or hears a cat anywhere inside a hundred-yard radius.

She's less enthusiastic about learning more complex commands, and Hannibal doesn't push very hard on that front. "She's not a circus performer," he says when she only yawns in response to the notion of "playing dead."

It's not for lack of brightness, though. Will is certain of that.

One night as he and Hannibal sip thick, smoky dark chocolate from tiny cups, Cephi pops up from her bed by the fire and prances over to the sofa. She bypasses Will entirely and nudges Hannibal's leg with her nose.

When he looks at her, she drops her butt to the floor and gives him a big, loose-lipped smile.

"Good girl!" he tells her, and reaches into his pocket for a bit of homemade chicken jerky, which is apparently a thing he carries in his pocket now.

Cephi waits a few moments, stands up, and sits again as soon as Hannibal looks at her.

Will bites his lip. He should probably tell Hannibal that their dog has turned the tables and got him wrapped around her furry paw. For all Hannibal's intellectual understanding of dog-training, he's still led almost entirely by his emotions when it comes to Cephi. Will knows he should tell him it's not in the dog's best interests, in the long run, to let her call all the shots. 

But damned if it isn't amusing.

"What a good trainer you've turned out to be," he says, taking another sip of his chocolate.

"Thank you," Hannibal says, beaming with obvious pride.

"Doctor Lecter," Will says, "I... wasn't talking to you."

* * *

**Post-Coital, Pre-Nuptial**

Time frame: Right after Will has proposed to Hannibal again and they nearly destroy the landscaping in their celebratory enthusiasm.

*

"You know, you don't _have_ to bathe me."

Will sits chest-deep in warm, orange-scented water while Hannibal kneels beside the tub and strokes his back with a sponge. 

"Are you saying you don't _want_ me to bathe you?" Hannibal asks.

"Oh, no, no," Will hurries to say. "Just that you're not obligated. I'm not so sore that I can't wash myself."

"You can barely stand up," Hannibal reminds him.

It's true. The muscles in his legs and arms are still trembling from holding himself up while Hannibal gave him one of the most thorough and satisfying fuckings of his life. He might not even be able to get out of bed come morning, which suits him just fine.

"Lean your head back," comes the gentle command. "Close your eyes."

Will does as he's told and Hannibal squeezes the sponge over his forehead. Hannibal's fingers massage his scalp and temples, then down to his shoulders. They squeeze harder there, digging in until the tense fascia start to relax.

Will grimaces. "Oof."

"You did say you wanted to feel it for days," Hannibal says. 

"I mostly meant my ass but point taken." 

Hannibal picks up the sponge again and strokes it down his back. There are dozens of crushed wisteria petals floating in the water, not so much by design but because they were still clinging to his skin when he got in the bath.

"Raise up a little," Hannibal instructs him.

Will shifts in the tub and Hannibal moves the sponge between his buttocks, lightly circling his hole and perineum. Will moans. His well-satisfied cock stays soft, but he wouldn't object to being laid out on soft towels and slowly fucked until he falls asleep. He makes a mental note to suggest it to Hannibal.

Hannibal nudges him back into a seated position and moves around in front of him to wash his chest.

"You called me an adequate dancer," Will says, recalling their stroll earlier in the day.

"I may have been somewhat generous," Hannibal says.

Will lifts a hand from the water to flick droplets at him. "_Anyway_. I figured out something that's puzzled me ever since the day you tried to teach me the tango."

"Oh?" Hannibal washes behind his knees and thighs.

Will reaches for Hannibal's wrist, pausing him in his bathing endeavors. He lifts Hannibal's hand to his face and leans into his palm. "The way we moved when we killed the Dragon... the way we came together under the wisteria vines tonight... how I knew without one word exchanged what you meant when you bound my wrists... We're the only people in the world when we're together. We follow nobody's rules but our own."

"Formal dance is one rule after another," Hannibal says.

"It's not just us when we're dancing like that," Will says. 

"We're dancing with every person who invented the steps and constructed every hold and position."

Will sighs, relieved, then kisses Hannibal's palm, just beneath the finger where his new engagement ring sits. "So you understand."

"Of course," Hannibal says. "I was only waiting for you to understand."

-end-

**Author's Note:**

> Like cut scenes from TV shows, these fic scenes may not jibe perfectly with the installments that have already been published. Should they be considered "canon" in the universe of this story?


End file.
